


burning our fingers

by neneyeeee



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (sort of comfort), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar)-centric, Canonical Mental Health Issues, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Sort Of, not necessarily compliant with the comics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25539733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neneyeeee/pseuds/neneyeeee
Summary: Azula is aware of her flaws, though she prefers not to call them that. She keeps a close eye on them, tries to keep herself in check. She knows that she cannot afford to slip up, cannot risk being soft and vulnerable or foolishly exploitable or any form of weak.(Look at Zuko: too young for the war room and too young for an Agni Kai. The heir to the throne cast aside and thrown away like a piece of trash.)five times Azula messed up with her lightning, and one time she hit her mark.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	burning our fingers

**Author's Note:**

> this is dedicated to my friend Ellie, who put this idea in my head!! I don’t know if she has an ao3 account, but her art account is @rehollow_ on instagram. Go check it out, she’s super talented!

Azula is twelve the first time she attempts to bend lightning.

Her father is meeting with the war counsel, and even though she isn’t  _ Zuko _ _,_ she still doesn’t have permission to participate in the meeting.

She could push for it, she knows. Azula could convince her father to let her sit in and listen or she could threaten the guards to let her through. And even given that, she doesn’t really need to push for it, because she could just as easily eavesdrop from behind the curtains or in one of the old servants’ halls hidden behind a grand painting of her great-grandfather Sozin.

She’s done it before, has snuck into war counsels and important meetings while everyone was unaware. Once upon a time, when mother was here and grandfather was still Firelord and there was no siege of Ba Sing Se, she bribed cousin Lu Ten into hiding her under the long folds of his formal robes so that she could sneak inside the war room. When he moved to sit down, she had slid out and under the low table, and stuck wads of molten cherry taffy to the shoes of stuffy generals, all the while listening to Uncle Iroh detail his plans to conquer the Earth Kingdom’s last and greatest stronghold.

She was there, too, when Zuko spoke out for the first and final time. And she had stayed after he left, and listened to the details of his scheduled Agni Kai.

Azula hates not knowing things. She likes to know what all of her playing cards are, likes to know what weaknesses she may need to exploit and whatever strengths or allies will benefit her most, so she sneaks into meetings and eavesdrops on servants and visiting courtiers and merchants. 

And even though she hasn’t snuck back into the war room since her brother left, her hatred of the unknown almost always wins her out.

In fact, she nearly goes to the war counsel. She wakes up extra early and puts on her crown, polished and perfectly poise, and works up the courage to walk all the way to her father’s chambers and wait for him to emerge. She’ll bow to him, not too low, not in a groveling, begging, sniveling sort-of way, but just low enough to show respect, and she’ll ask for his permission to join the war counsel.

But then Azula hesitates for a fraction of a second, her hand twitching lightly. She has the sudden urge to touch the left side of her face.

_ Disappointing, disappointing, _ a phantom voice whispers inside her head. It speaks in the same tone her father did, after her brother left. Quiet and calm, but biting in the familiar sting of a hot iron or a firebender’s lit palm.

All of a sudden she feels out of place, and it leaves her so frazzled that she relinquishes her position in front of her father’s chamber door and heads to her personal training ground instead.

Azula hasn’t learned the proper forms for lightning bending yet. All she knows is from her memories, from observations:

The way her father’s wrist twisted as he executed a traitor. How uncle breathed in and out in tandem with his movements as he demonstrated the first steps of a kata for his son. The way cousin Lu Ten’s hair stood on its ends after a spar.

She lets her feet slip into position, her body falling into whatever forms she can remember. With each shift she pushes and wills the sharp scent of ozone to manifest.

It does not work the first time, so she starts over again. She breathes in, out. Her core tightens in anticipation and she twists her wrist more to the right, only for her usual blue fire to come out.

The second time, she widens her stance, and takes a deep breath before moving forward. She steps with the ear-pounding tempo of her heart and exhales as she reaches inside and tries to pull out lightning. The blue flames erupt again.

The third time, she takes out her crown and places it atop a nearby bench. Her hair fans out from its top knot and falls against her shoulders, which she angles downwards in the starting position of a different kata. When she steps forward, her hair frizzes in a way that must surely be a good sign, but as she moves to make her release, it is the blue flames that come again.

She does it over and over again, changing little things along the way. 

She could convince Lo and Li to help her, if she wanted to, but the two old women are more likely to reprimand her and remind her of her duties as heiress. She could dig through the royal library and sneak into the restricted section to find a scroll on lightning bending, but the library is right next to the war room, making it far too tempting. 

She could just stop. She could stop and wait until her thirteenth birthday. After all, she is already so far ahead, so advanced for her age, that it wouldn’t hurt to take a break.

_ Disappointing, disappointing.  _ The disembodied voice of not-quite-father is back again. It reminds her of an older brother with bandages all over the left side of his face.

Azula stays.

  
  
  
  
  


Tradition mandates that a royal firebender doesn’t learn how to bend lightning until they are thirteen, but Azula has learned that tradition is meant to be broken.

(Look at her father: he is the Firelord now. Him, the second son, weaker and more disappointing in Azulon’s eyes, now sitting atop the flaming throne and moving the Fire Nation closer to a complete, all-encompassing greatness over the Water Tribe savages and Earth Kingdom peasants. With her father as their leader, the Fire Nation has come closer to victory.)

Azula knows that her father is not always a fan of tradition, because for the longest time that was what kept him from achieving his goals. She is inclined to agree with him because, if circumstances had been different, she would have been in the same position:

The second child, barred from the throne because of their elder sibling.

(Look at her uncle: the first born prince, the heir to the throne of the greatest benders in the world, reduced to a decrepit, tea-obsessed man. The favored son now soft and careless, half a world away on a rust bucket of a ship, helping his disgraced nephew chase spirit tales.)

If her father and Uncle Iroh are not proof that tradition has faults, Azula doesn’t know what is. 

What if her uncle had been Firelord? What if, in his grief, he gave back the Fire Nation’s Earth Kingdom colonies in exchange for cousin Lu Ten’s corpse? What if he didn’t take the position seriously, the same way he doesn’t take the search for the Avatar as seriously as her brother does?

(Look at Zuko: too young for the war room and too young for an Agni Kai. The heir to the throne cast aside and thrown away like a piece of trash.)

Azula continues practicing until long past lunch and even supper.

She is usually more diligent in keeping track of time and taking care of her body, but she cannot help herself. Trying to bend lightning is an actual challenge that pushes her to limits she wasn’t aware she had. There are so many minuscule details in the process that require attention, so many mysteries to unravel.

The part of her that wants to know everything overpowers her rationale.

There are servants, she knows, hiding under the verandas surrounding the courtyard, too afraid to disrupt her practice and break her concentration. They do not bother her, just as they should, because they know that she is the Firelord’s prized child and it is important for her to hone her skills.

The palace staff already know the consequences of interrupting her in this state. The last time, she had been engrossed in an advanced kata, and the unfortunate woman had left the palace with third-degree burns on their arms.

From the corner of her eyes, Azula can spot one of the servants. The boy is mousy and short. His posture is slouched slightly, in a way that differentiates him from other inhabitants of Caldera, and his complexion tells her that he is most likely from the colonies. It is safe to assume that he is a newer member of the staff, probably the bastard son of some general who felt enough pity to get him a job at the palace; and he is the only one who seems to want to step in and ask her if she would like tea.

The quiet boldness reminds Azula of her mother.

When Azula moves to the next form, she can feel the distinct burn of ozone coursing through her veins and all around her, and she gets ready to aim straight for the pillar next to the new servant.

At the last possible second, she catches sight of gold hawk-like eyes. They claw into her soul and analyze her every breath, every intention. It is a sight she is familiar with, a face she knows like the back of her hand because it has been there since she was born.

The sight of those watching eyes manages to catch her off guard, and she feels that flicker of hesitation, that small but sudden pit of heavy not-dread that only makes itself known during the few times she messes up.

Firelord Ozai emerges from the war room and witnesses his daughter shoot lightning through the bullseye of a training target.

It is small, smaller than his, at least, and not as strong. That is to be expected though, even if someone compares his daughter’s natural prowess to his years of experience. The princess has just started, after all.

When the Firelord turns to his small procession, made up of the generals and advisors and chief strategists that followed him out of the war room, he gestures to the courtyard. His hand points discreetly to the training target, singed and with a large, gaping hole at the perfect center.

The Firelord says nothing, offers no praise as his daughter drops her stance and bows to him.

They know what he is saying.

_ Look. Look at the whole future of our nation, perched atop your princess’ shoulders. She is already a greater firebender than all of you. _

_ Look at what I have created. _

The next day, Princess Azula fires the new servant boy from the colonies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always love reading 5 +1 fics, and now I'm finally doing one! While the summary does say that the +1 is "one time [Azula] hit her mark", the +1 is more of a really important time where she didn't mess up with lightning, instead of being the only time she didn't mess up, because, let's face it, Azula's crazy powerful.


End file.
